People are social creatures—some more social than others. We express this socialization through relationships, and we carry it out through communication. Many communication techniques have been used—from direct dialogue to smoke signals to telegraph to telephone and wireless communications, such as cellular telephone. Modern technological modes of communication are very convenient, very easy to use, and very efficient.
However, establishing the communication is not always easy. Such a step generally involves getting all the people for communication on a single communication channel, whether in the same room, on a single phone call, or whatever—often termed as a “meeting” in a business context or perhaps a “party” or “confab” in a social context. Setting up the meeting or party is not so easy, however. The process may require sending out invitations, either by paper or electronically. The organizer may then need to tally up any responses to determine who will be coming. Alternatively, an electronic system such as a meeting scheduler can keep track of responses. Another way to set up a meeting or party is simply to contact each invitee directly (or by having a helper do so), such as through numerous telephone calls or e-mails messages. Such a process can be rather time consuming, and is perhaps too much work for a spontaneous get-together. Certain on-line systems also can help organize a party, keeping track of RSVP's and other information. Yet these too require advance planning and fairly involved organization. In addition, many of these systems require the organizer to select attendees from a manually-created list of acquaintances, such as members of an e-mail address book.